


"Peace in His Home"

by farad



Series: Epistles [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the Daybook prompt "any character, any AU, what makes a house a home"</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Peace in His Home"

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the second half of season two, well after "Lady Killers". Un-betaed, all mistakes my own.

 

_"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. "_

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

_"Dear Buck,_

 

_I suspect this letter is a surprise to you, and I must admit, it is a surprise to me, too. But I've been thinking about you a lot lately, about what you said that first day we met._

 

_I think I told you when I left town that Pa had left us a piece of land, a weed patch, as it were, here in Texas. Ain't much to it, but the shack was still here when I got back, and the barn. It weren't much and it still ain't, but it's mine and it's all I got, now that Maddie's gone._

 

_Pa had always tried to grow corn, though other folk around told him it was a fool's game. He was a stubborn cuss, and that was when he was sober, mind, and he thought he knew everything. I spent some time talking to some of the neighbors, getting some advice about what to grow. Getting some advice about what I would need to do, if I could do anything._

 

_Things have changed in the years Maddie and I were gone, changed enough that most of the neighbors done forgot about Pa and what a son of a bitch he was. They've been nice to me, nicer than before we left. Some even took pity on Maddie, though I didn't tell what happened to her. Reckon that might come out in its own time, but if I'm going to live here, I don't want to start off with it hanging over me._

 

_This ain't why I'm writing you though, reckon you don't really care much about all this. Why I'm writing you is 'cause I wanted to let you know that maybe you were right. Those words are hard for me to say – to write, I guess – but I felt I should tell you._

 

_Got a new neighbor, one whose property borders up to mine on one side. His name is Darnell, but everyone here calls him Darn. He offered to help me with clearing the field, and as he had a mule to pull the plow, I took him up on his offer._

 

_Just to be clear: he ain't like you. He didn't set right out to wooing me. If anything, he was friendly but he kept his space. Sometimes, I could feel him looking at me, and I'd look up to see him watching, same way your friend Larabee watched me and Maddie._

 

_But he was helpful and I needed that. Sometimes, he'd stay for dinner – not that I had much, but I felt I owed him for all his help. And when dinner was over, he'd tip his hat and take his mule home._

 

_After the planting was done – beans, can you believe it? That's what we grow here, in this part of the world, but damned if they ain't coming up – he said he'd help me shore up the shack. Lord knows it needed it. I was living in one room, since the roof was coming down on the other side of it. But Darnell helped me set it right, even asked Lawrence, one of the local boys, to help us set the rafter, though I couldn't pay him more than a promise against the crop._

 

_It's different now, the house, and I guess because of that, it's not the house I grew up in. It's not my father's house anymore. When I first came back here, I dreamed of him, of how he used to treat us, how he used to – well, I dreamed of all the reasons I left with Del, all the reasons I stayed with him. All the reasons I didn't take Maddie away when I had the chance, no matter how bad Del was._

 

_But once we worked on it, fixed the roof, added some windows, whitewashed the walls inside and out, cleaned it up – it's a house now. It's a home. And it's my home, Buck, not my pa's, not the one that has all those memories. Don't get me wrong, they're still here, the ghost of my ma, of my pa. Hell, even Maddie. But they ain't the same now. They ain't looking to make me hurt, to make me pay._

 

_I ain’t' the same. And I reckon that's what I'm thanking you for. You said to me that I could fight for myself, for me. I have. I have made this place my place, made it a place that I want to live in. A place that's safe and solid and clean and bright._

 

_But I ain't done it alone, and you were right about that, too. It's taken a while, a long while. But Darn – well, as I call him, Gosh Darn, he's been here for me. He ain't you – he's not charming and handsome and trying to make me into a woman with a red hat and a pretty skirt. And he ain't willing to let me blow smoke – cigar or otherwise – up his backside to get my way. Like I said, he reminds me overmuch of your friend Larabee. He looks sideways at me more often than not, not sure what I'm talking about or even what my intentions are._

 

_He don't talk down to me neither, though. And he's never raised a hand to me – heck, I'm the one who gets mad and stomps away. Mostly because I'm scared – scared that he'll see my past for what it really was and realize what I am. I have told him – I wouldn't keep that a secret. But he says it's all done now, and that I'm not that person anymore. And he says that what happened with Maddie couldn't have been stopped, no matter how hard I tried._

 

_I believe him, too, though I don't like to think on it more than I have to. He's a straight shooter._

 

_And I think he cares for me. Not the way Del did, not the way Pa did, but maybe, just maybe, the way you were talking about. He don't say much, not the way you did, but he holds on to me like I might fly away._

 

_Like I can make that choice and he'd have to abide by it._

 

_So maybe you were right. And while they might've broke the mold after you, maybe Darnell came before you, in a mold that has some of your friend Larabee in it. I can abide with that._

 

_Maybe if I'd have known you sooner, my life - and maybe Maddie's – would have been different. But I know you now, and you were right._

 

_If you get a chance, take a flower up and put it on Maddie's grave for me, and tell her I miss her. Tell her that I'm happy, though, and that I hope she's at peace, in them green fields with the Lord, and maybe with Mama, like she wanted._

 

_With thanks,_

 

_Kate Stokes_


End file.
